Dr. Richard A. Kass, a Nebraska native, served the Department of Defense in three capacities: military, civil service, and support contractor. He was a Marine Corps infantry officer from 1970 to 1973 serving as a First Lieutenant in Marine Reconnaissance Battalions and graduated from the U.S. Army Ranger School.

After military service, Dr. Kass earned a PhD in Psychology and served a distinguished 26-year civil service career from 1980 to 2006, followed by his position as a contractor with Geeks and Nerds (GaN) Corporation continuing to support OTC at Ft. Cavazos. Dr. Kass retired from full-time employment in 2014. His dedicated service to his Nation spans five decades.

Dr. Kass started his career in 1980 with the Army Research Institute as a research psychologist, moving in 1983 to be an Operations Research and Systems Analyst (ORSA) in MAD, where he began developing new methodologies for Army T&E by strengthening subject matter expert (SME) data collection. While in MAD, Dr. Kass was the first Army civilian selected to attend the Army’s Command and General Staff College.

In 1986, Dr. Kass transferred to ATEC Operational Evaluation Command (OEC). As an evaluation analyst, he advanced innovative T&E strategies for Air Defense, Close Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems. He also served as the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Evaluation Directorate (IED).  

Dr. Kass returned to OTC in 1992 as Deputy Director/Senior Test Manager in MCTD. His instrumentation validation concepts were employed at OTC as the Army fielded its first suite of fully integrated tactical mission command systems.

In 1995, Dr. Kass was appointed to stand up a new test directorate, ACITD. Under his leadership, the Directorate developed innovative data collection strategies for the Army’s Task Force XXI Army Warfighting Experiments (AWE) conducted at the National Training Center (NTC) in 1997.  

Following the AWE, Dr. Kass served as the Director of IMATD from 1997 to 1999. He led his directorate in testing automated information systems and establishing proactive test planning techniques in a dynamic test environment.  

From 2000 to 2006, Dr. Kass was Chief of Methodology for Joint Experimentation in U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) applying his testing methodology to warfighting experiments on Joint systems.

After retiring from 26 years of civil service, Dr. Kass returned to OTC and Fort Cavazos as a support contractor from 2007 to 2014, guiding improvements to test methodology, including implementing formal Design of Experiments (DOE) into test design and leading develop of next generation radio-testing simulations.

Throughout his professional career, Dr. Kass published a book and over 20 articles on testing, experimentation, measurement, and methodology. His legacy of testing leadership, innovations, and methodological contributions over the past four decades have postured the Army’s testing efforts for success over the next decades.